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Question of the week

Published 7:00 pm, Saturday, December 4, 2004

In light of the recent firing of Notre Dame football coach Tyrone Willingham and several other college football coaches, do you think schools are giving coaches enough time to build winning programs?

CHRIS STEVENS: Well, for starters, thats just the way the business is.

Is it right? Not necessarily. But these coaches know what theyre getting into.

Division I college football is big business, and just like in other big business, if you dont deliver the goods  in this case wins and championships  its time to hit the trail. All the talk about graduation rates, GPAs and community service sounds great, but make no mistake, this is a sport about wins and losses, and making money.

How do you do that? By winning. And, in particular, you do that by winning on the football field.

Football is the engine that drives the money train in college sports.

So unless college sports is totally restructured and making large sums of money is no longer a top priority, quick firings are going to keep happening at the elite level if coaches dont produce.

I feel bad for people who lose their jobs. But, like I said earlier, they know what theyre getting into.

CHRIS MARCHAND: Gerry DiNardo (Indiana), Ron Zook (Florida) and Tyrone Willingham were all fired after three years.

College football coaches should be given at least four or five years to prove themselves. Coaches should be given the chance to see their first recruiting class become seniors. That usually takes four years.

Willinghams dismissal is downright shameful. The quote that I heard was to the effect that Willingham did the right things from Monday through Friday, but Saturdays results werent good enough. The message sent to me was that going to Notre Dame is all about winning football games and not about getting a quality education.

Notre Dames self-proclamation of doing things right and by the book wreaks of hypocrisy. Heres a school that stays independent for the sake of keeping its multi-million dollar contract with NBC.

DiNardos Hoosiers werent all that good. But this was the first season that DiNardo was able to have the full allotment of scholarships available. Give the guy a chance.

FRED KELLY: I realize that, in most cases, winning is the bottom line when it comes to evaluating a coachs  particularly a football coachs  job performance. However, building a winning program often takes time. And, by that, Im talking about more than the two-plus years that Willingham was given at Notre Dame.

In rare cases  such as Saginaw Valley States Randy Awrey turning the Cardinals into perennial playoff contenders almost immediately  a new coach can have a huge impact right away. More often than not, though, a new coach  especially one stepping into a situation where a program is in disarray  is going to need more than a couple of years to right the ship.

I also think that theres something to be said for a coach who brings class and dignity to his job. Willingham is one of those. Winning is a big thing, but Im not sure it should always be the only thing  especially when a coach is just getting started in a new locale.

Willingham seems like a truly good guy, and I think Notre Dame should have at least allowed him to finish out his five-year contract and then evaluated his performance from there.

DAN CHALK: No, theyre not giving them enough time, particularly in the case of Willingham, who was fired after three years.

The players Willingham recruited are now juniors or redshirt sophomores, just coming into their own as players. So next season, I think, would actually be the season to start measuring Willinghams success as a recruiter and determine whether he deserves to keep the job.

Instead, Notre Dame got impatient. It reminds me of the TV networks  nowadays, they dont wait to see if a show will develop an audience over time, like Seinfeld did. If it doesnt get high ratings in the first few weeks, its off the air.

Athletics directors need to use common sense in making these decisions, even if fans and boosters are breathing down their necks.